


The ol' Lone Stranger

by TrenchcoatButtons



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre: F/M, Gen, Wild West AU, sandor is a masked vigilante in the wild west, you are a patron of the local bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatButtons/pseuds/TrenchcoatButtons
Summary: You settle down with your whiskey and ask the bartender what everyone's whispering about. The Hound left a raper hung from a hook on the tree up the hill. The Hound? You ask.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	The ol' Lone Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> For Mallorie :3

They say the seven devils themselves gave the mad dog his horse. That the Stranger cut the beast from hellish rock and let it loose to raise cain. It's hooves spark on stone, and it breathes out the fires from whence it came, rage given form to roam the wastes of the west.

Sansa Stark doesn't know about that. She does know that the steed's got a sweet tooth not unlike herself, and'll gladly eat chopped apples from the right palm. 

But that ain't one of the rumors, not by any means.

They say its rider commands a pack of hellhounds out in the hills, that he speaks to the dead and sleeps in grave dirt. Some say his face is so horrible to look upon it'll turn a man blind, or else send them running in the opposite direction. They say he was such a sinner in life that he got spat back out the fires of the hells, marked forever and mad as can be about it.

Sansa Stark knows he don't like that rumor.

Sansa Stark also knows that the hound of people's nightmares is just a man, living and breathing as well as any of the rest of us. He ain't ever died, at least not in the way a heart quits beating. 

She knows he feeds those wild dogs out in the canyon, and that his horse is mean-tempered but still just a horse. She knows he hates fire, and why. She knows he lives in the old chapel in the cemetery, digs the graves as the dead come wanting. She knows more about him than most anyone's ever known the hound.

The truth, as I hear it, is he worked for those Lannisters further west, guarding the oil rigs and making folks disappear for his masters. There was something about a wedding gone bad, and a great green fire that near destroyed the whole oil field. A couple of those Starks went missing, turned up dead, and in the end he sat himself down in the old chapel and dug himself some graves.

Little birdie tells me he got a telegram after that. Whoever that man sitting in the chapel was, he wrapped his ugly mug up in black, saddled up that hellbeast you might call a horse, and took off to the east. 

When he came back, so did the wolves. 

Sansa Stark and her sister took over their daddy's business, ousted that greasy Bolton running around playing at being mayor. Folks'll tell you that they had the papers and the law to do it, but quite a few fresh graves got added to the cemetery when all was said and done.

Round about then is when the Hound and his black devil of a horse started gettin' seen.

Folks'll also tell you every blasphemous rumor 'bout the hound, how he and his horse are Stranger-sent and bring ill tide. But you know what, we ain't had half as many troublemakers come up since he started riding. Ran out thosedeadbeats stealing cattle and roughing up the commons. You may ask why he don't just put a star on his chest and be the sheriff- well. Think it must go something like this.

We all got a bit of the devil in us. The hound more than some, and he ain't one to suffer flattery. He just does what he does and does it fine as cream gravy. Most folks see what they want to see, and they see two things- one monster and one man.

Sansa Stark seems to have an eye on both.

Might be that's why she knows all those things about him. Why she takes those long walks out to the cemetery with a smile on her face. Or why on a cold day you might see her wearing a man's jacket what's seen better days.

Why sometimes the hound's got a yellow ribbon tied to his collar.


End file.
